Defining Enlightenment

[doc benway]

So a little while ago, I was asked to define enlightenment. Shortly after that I noticed people challenging whether this or that master was enlightened or if their students were enlightened, and so on. So I've been pondering this whole idea of enlightenment and how to define it or if it can be defined and what good that does us. So I'll ramble a bit about it and see where I end up...

I hope I don't bore anyone too much or sound too full of myself but I guess I'll take that chance!

 

What is enlightenment? I've seen lots of ideas and descriptions and some have been fairly satisfying at times, and others not. I imagine it depends on our frame of reference, conditioning, expectations, and so on, whether a particular definition or description is satisfying. So then it follows that this is a subjective thing. Is there a definition of enlightenment that would equally satisfy the Hindu, Jew, Christian, Muslim, atheist, non-dualist, Daoist, Buddhist, Jainist, and so on? Certainly the state or condition I am after is not dependent on the individual seeking it. Everyone has a different symbol or imagination as to what that state is but the state is the reality, these various groups don't define the reality, they're just doing their best to approximate it with words and concepts, which are never the thing, only representations and approximations.

 

So it seems that enlightenment is an idea. It's a word. It's a thought. An image or symbol that the mind has created to represent something. Now it's important to recognize that thought is limited. We can never know EVERYTHING about anything. In fact we know relatively little about most things. And yet the mind can create a symbol to represent more than it knows, more than it can ever know - the limitless, the infinite, that which is beyond it's comprehension. So we create a word - God. And that represents that which is beyond all comprehension. And after a while, our image of God is so well established we actually have fooled ourselves into believing that we understand God. Or substitute the word God with anything of a similar nature - Dao, E&DO, Brahman, Atman, whatever. And we create a word/concept - enlightenment. What does this represent? Let's agree perhaps that it represents a state or condition that is beyond our limited condition of thought and concepts and ideas. A state approaching some contact with Reality or Truth. Some contact with the nature of our existence or awareness - whatever word you choose based on your conditioning and your path.

 

So the mind creates this thought - there is a state called enlightenment. And then it becomes a goal, a desire, something that must be achieved. And yet it is a creation of the mind. And it is undefinable. So how can it possibly be achieved? And how could we know when it was? So we set ourselves up on this hamster wheel trying to get this thing. And why do we want it? That's critical! To end our pain and suffering? To make us powerful? To satisfy endless curiosity? All those things. The mind is never satisfied with what it is, what it has. That is our nature. Our nature is to build, grow, learn, become something other than what we are. It never ends. So for the spiritually minded, this concept of enlightenment becomes the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. An elusive concept, created by the mind, that is an endless source of desire, enticement, and frustration - DUKKHA!

So the very thing we are trying to get rid of (if we are Buddhist, for example) is invariably generated by the path we are on.

And it's very easy to deny that but if we look really carefully and deeply at ourselves, is it not true?

 

And who is it that is doing the searching? An illusion. A thought that separates itself from the others and claims ownership as the thinker and subjugates all other thoughts to its management. The thought that analyzes and criticizes, adjusts and judges all the other thoughts. And is the thinker separate from thought? And can improving this "thinker" through practice, chanting, meditations, study, worship ever help the thinker to become aware of itself, it's true nature? Society has taught us to better ourselves, to study, to succeed, make money, have station. So we are after spiritual station. Will this allow us to see through this illusion? Or does it just further reinforce the thinker's existence?

 

So how to deal with all this? Can the mind ever reach that which, by its very nature, is beyond the limitations of thought and concept. In other words, that which is beyond the mind? Is it possible? If so, what sort of quality of mind would it take to approach this? A mind that is full of concepts? A mind that is conditioned by a culture or a practice? A mind full of expectations and preconceptions (enlightenment is the rainbow body, enlightenment is Christ, Buddha nature, Ein Sof) and all of that? Because all of those are concepts created by man, by the mind. And the mind is limited to start with, now the conceptual framework which excludes all other concepts from other frames of reference narrows it even further. So how can this mind approach Reality?

 

So what to do? I'm not going to claim to have an answer. Any answer would just be another construct of the mind - an idea, a path or method. And an answer would end this process of seriously examining this question. I am not looking for a conclusion because a conclusion is an end. And if we end this inquiry, we will certainly never reach what we are looking for. It's the question that keeps us alive. Keeps us looking deeper in ourselves. This is where we have to look, not in some holy book or technique or drug.

 

What if I were to let all of that go. All of the conditioning, all of the ideas and concepts and expectations. Open myself up to whatever is left when I abandon everything else. Could that be the type of mind that could approach this problem? Is that meditation? If not that, then what? I'll repeat a phrase that I really like because I think it's apropos of all this.

Belief is a fervent desire that a particular idea, that cannot be proven or disproven, is truth.

Faith is the confidence that when all belief is discarded, what remains must be truth.

 

I don't know if this will be of any value to anyone but sometimes working through things like this in my head seems to be helpful. Maybe I've just been reading too much Krishnamurti...

 

Goodnight all, I'm spent.

[manitou]

Steve, your brain must have been smmmokin'!! after all that pondering.

 

At this point in my life, my guess would be that enlightenment is the combination of knowing Who You Truly Are (as accomplished by self-realization), combined with loss of structure, combined with trusting the Universe that things are truly going of their own accord, combined with Love for the Oneness of everything and everybody.

[deci belle]

[C T]

[Otis]

Excellent OP, Steve. I'm in 100% agreement. Every word.

[C T]

In the Buddhist tradition, Insight and the feel of enlightening experience is synonymous. Whenever the subject of Insight is discussed among Mahayana practitioners, very often the Prajnaparamita Sutra is referenced. I have found this commentary http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/heart-sutra-commentary.html of the aforementioned sutra to be very helpful, and have pasted it here for everyone's benefit.

 

Hope its ok with you, Steve.

 

Loved your OP!

Edited June 9, 2011 by CowTao

[manitou]

Solidifying enlightening qualities in everyday ordinary situations unbeknownst to anyone is enlightening activity and is another word for meditation in action. In alchemic terms it is the time of incubation. Eventually, one learns to sublimate oneself spiritually and physically in the tao which is neither knowing nor not-knowing in the course of responding to ordinary affairs.

 

 

 

I think this is a wonderful statement. There's an equivalency here to Karma Yoga, as opposed to Bhakti (?) Yoga or Gnani Yoga. This is the Yoga of living life. To infuse every moment with enlightenment; not because you're out there hollering the answers (because everyone else thinks they have the answers too and therefore a head-butting contest would ensue) but you essentially become the model of the Tao -or... the Sage in action. Probably more specifically non-action.

 

I think the word 'enlightenment' alone connotates being enlightened of something. My thinking is that we are 'enlightened' of any religious structure because we have found the essence at our own foundation, once we've done the inner cultivation. I think we're enlightened of having to react through the lens of ego, the Great Distorter, because we've taken the steps to tame and subjugate that when needed. Or the word 'enlightened' can also connotate 'infused with light'. The infusion of light would equate to the infusion of love for life and all things sentient.

 

Personally, I think we're all just a projector for 'It', and when we keep the lens clean, the movie comes out very clearly.

Edited June 9, 2011 by manitou

[doc benway]

I think this is a wonderful statement. There's an equivalency here to Karma Yoga, as opposed to Bhakti (?) Yoga or Gnani Yoga. This is the Yoga of living life. To infuse every moment with enlightenment; not because you're out there hollering the answers (because everyone else thinks they have the answers too and therefore a head-butting contest would ensue) but you essentially become the model of the Tao -or... the Sage in action. Probably more specifically non-action.

 

I think the word 'enlightenment' alone connotates being enlightened of something. My thinking is that we are 'enlightened' of any religious structure because we have found the essence at our own foundation, once we've done the inner cultivation. I think we're enlightened of having to react through the lens of ego, the Great Distorter, because we've taken the steps to tame and subjugate that when needed. Or the word 'enlightened' can also connotate 'infused with light'. The infusion of light would equate to the infusion of love for life and all things sentient.

 

Personally, I think we're all just a projector for 'It', and when we keep the lens clean, the movie comes out very clearly.

Manitou - I gave up the smoke...

I echo your praise of deci belle's post.

Beautiful advice for living an enriching life!

 

And I love your use of 'enlightenment' as a lightening.

Shrugging off the burden of the search, the work, climbing the path.

Seeing through the addiction with becoming something else.

Liberation from the yoke of societal and cultural conditioning.

 

CowTao - Thanks for the link. If it's ever not OK with me, I hope you'll tell me to get over myself and F-off (in a non-insulting way of course... )

[Thunder_Gooch]

I am not enlightened, nor do I seek it as a goal.

 

From what I have read from people who claim to be enlightened, Jed McKenna, Steven Norquist etc is that enlightenment is a non dual experience that should last until death barring a traumatic brain injury or something similar.

 

Enlightenment as they describe is a shift in awareness. No longer are they people, but experiences of those people. No longer do they have bodies, they have experiences of having bodies. It is as if they were in a movie theater watching a movie called "their life" and had suspended their disbelief, and forgotten they were watching a movie. Enlightenment was the moment they remembered and realized what was being seen and heard on the movie screen was in fact, just a movie.

 

 

(caption: this is not a pipe) This is a painting of a pipe.

 

 

 

 

Manitou - I gave up the smoke...

I echo your praise of deci belle's post.

Beautiful advice for living an enriching life!

 

And I love your use of 'enlightenment' as a lightening.

Shrugging off the burden of the search, the work, climbing the path.

Seeing through the addiction with becoming something else.

Liberation from the yoke of societal and cultural conditioning.

 

CowTao - Thanks for the link. If it's ever not OK with me, I hope you'll tell me to get over myself and F-off (in a non-insulting way of course... )

Edited June 9, 2011 by More_Pie_Guy

[Thunder_Gooch]

Random thoughts and musings quasi-relevant to the subject.

 

 

Over the course of your life every atom in your body will be replaced many times over.

 

Have you ever heard the story of George Washington's hatchet? Historians have a joke about a museum claiming to display the hatchet that young George Washington used to chop down his father's cherry tree. The only problem is that the handle rotted and had to be replaced, then the head rusted and had to be replaced. So is it the original hatchet?

 

You really are just information, a pattern. The physical body you inhabited 10 years ago is no longer here, the atoms that made it up, are no longer present in your current body.

 

I like to think of how this process would look if you could observe the path of all the atoms moving into and out of your body over the course of your life. What I visualize is something like an eddy or whirlpool in an ever moving river.

 

The pattern, the information that makes you, you has remained mostly. As we age the pattern of us degrades slowly. We are not our physical bodies, we are the arrangement, pattern and information itself.

 

 

 

Even atoms themselves in a universal time scale are in a state of such flux, ever changing. There is nothing that makes atoms so unique or permanent, elements can and are changed from one element to another frequently. In the hearts of starts via fusion or exploding supernovae or via particle accelerators in a process called nuclear transmutation.We have changed lead into gold via such methods. Atoms are more like lego creations.

 

 

Inside our brains our neurons are firing like an electrical lightning storm, whatever our consciousness is it is electric and energetic. I like to think of the physical body as a oil lamp, and the consciousness is the flame. Over our life the wick and oil are replaced many times but the flame remains present.

 

One of my random musings is that the cells that comprise my body actually are

intelligent at a very basic level, and that they collectively give rise to my awareness. In essence my mind is like the government of an advanced cellular society.

 

I wonder if what we are doing right now, sharing thoughts and information over a vast internet that interconnects us all like neurons in a neural net, is giving rise to a larger consciousness we aren't even aware of. I guess it depends on your perspective

 

 

Viewed from space, you see the planet earth as one whole, not subdivided into thousands of objects. Is it one thing, or many things lumped together? I guess it depends on your perspective and level of magnification. That holds true for everything in our universe.

 

 

If you adjust your magnification, you will see that every "thing" is a part of something else.

 

The galaxy is one thing which is a part of the universe.

 

The solar system is a one thing that is a part of the galaxy, that is a part of the universe.

 

The earth is a planet that is a part of our solar system, that is a part of the galaxy, that is a part of the universe.

 

You are one thing that is a part of the earth, that is a part of our solar system, that is a part of the universe.

 

A cell that is a part of your body, is a part of you, that is a part of the earth,that is a part of our solar system, that is a part of the universe.

 

A molecule that is a part of the the cell,that is a part of your body, is a part of you, that is a part of the earth,that is a part of our solar system, that is a part of the universe.

 

An atom is a part of the molecule that is a part of the the cell,that is a part of your body, is a part of you, that is a part of the earth,that is a part of our solar system, that is a part of the universe.

 

A subatomic particle is a part of the atom, An atom is a part of the molecule that is a part of the the cell,that is a part of your body, is a part of you, that is a part of the earth,that is a part of our solar system, that is a part of the universe.

 

I would venture to guess that there is no limit, if we could keep splitting up subatomic particles ad infinitum, they would continue this trend with no ultimate building block ever to be found. As above so below, maybe the universe at a macrocosmic scale mirrors that at a microcosmic scale. I believe the reality in which we live is holographic, fractilic, and electric, and infinite.

 

 

From birth we are conditioned to think with word's, this is that, that is this. We label each object, describe each concept. Language has no reality outside of our mind's however. It is a useful fiction.

 

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.” -Buddha

 

 

 

We are conditioned from birth to label everything, conditioned to see millions of things everywhere, there truth is there is only one coherent pattern of which everything is apart. Really there are no things, just waves in an ocean. We don't see it as such because the flow of atoms takes such long periods of time. Really all the things we see are temporary arrangements or patterns.

Edited June 9, 2011 by More_Pie_Guy

[Aaron]

Hello Steve,

 

I loved your original post too. I think what I've come to understand is that there really is no such thing as enlightenment. When you look at the experience of enlightenment, it's intricately linked to no-enlightenment, all you are doing is moving from one end of that experience to the other. The perception of enlightenment doesn't change the experience, it just changes what we believe it is. Ignorance and knowledge are the same thing. It is better in my opinion to not worry about such things as enlightenment (I know this may sound hypocritical, but it's a recent insight, after examining it more closely).

 

I am beginning to understand more each day that the true trick to actually living life, is to give up our preconceptions about life, these things we've been told are true and lies, and just realize that there is no truth or lie, that everything that exists simply exists and as deci belle says, changes and transforms. We are not the same person we were ten years ago, but we are as well. The trick to understanding who we are is to see the entirety of the experience of being I as it really is. When we can see that, then we can see that all these experiences are really just one experience, the state of being.

 

Aaron

Edited June 9, 2011 by Twinner

[ChiDragon]

It takes an enlightened one to tell you what enlightenment is. How can an unenlightened one tell you what it is...??? I will come back and tell you what it is when I attained enlightenment.

[manitou]

It takes an enlightened one to tell you what enlightenment is. How can an unenlightened one tell you what it is...??? I will come back and tell you what it is when I attained enlightenment.

 

 

Not to get all Christian on everyone, but I think this must be what the Nazarene meant when he said "those who have eyes...See! Those who have ears...Hear!", or something to that effect. As we used to say when we were children and someone called us a name, "It takes one to know one. Nah na nah, na nah, nah!" The nazarene also said something about returning to the mind of a child....you never hear this from the pulpit, I don't think. But how very much we knew instinctively as children, such as the above silly little comeback mentioned above. And yet....how very true and poignant we find this to be, when we come full circle and approach enlightenment. It takes one to know one. As a child. The child before he became jaded and fearful and cynical and aggressive and contorted to suit the preconceptions of their parents.

[mYTHmAKER]

It takes an enlightened one to tell you what enlightenment is. How can an unenlightened one tell you what it is...??? I will come back and tell you what it is when I attained enlightenment.

 

If you have to tell me then you won't be enlightened

[ChiDragon]

If you have to tell me then you won't be enlightened

 

If I tell you then, you won't be understood.

Edited June 9, 2011 by ChiDragon

[StoneHead]

What is enlightenment? I've seen lots of ideas and descriptions and some have been fairly satisfying at times, and others not. I imagine it depends on our frame of reference, conditioning, expectations, and so on, whether a particular definition or description is satisfying. So then it follows that this is a subjective thing.

 

I know nothing about enlightenment, but an empty mind is enough for me.

Edited June 9, 2011 by StoneHead

[mYTHmAKER]

If I tell you then, you won't be understood.

 

If i am enlightened, then i will know you are not

[ChiDragon]

If i am enlightened, then i will know you are not

 

If you don't see my next reply, it means I'm enlightened....

[strawdog65]

Enlightenment.

 

Realization of being more than our worldly bounds.

 

Acknowledgment that we "see" ourselves as individuals,

when in fact we exist connected to everything else...

and that there is no actual separateness.

 

Once we fully know this... how can we not be enlightened?

 

 

Easy to say...much harder to do.

[Birch]

"...much harder to do"

 

I dunno, I think (for now) it's harder to maintain any consideration of it (whether the split(s) or anything else) and I have this other idea that if you just sort of forget about it (once you 'know') it gets easier. Because fighting it either way is 'who's' job? Fake Steve Jobs!

 

I could be wrong as usual.

[ChiDragon]

Enlightenment.

 

Realization of being more than our worldly bounds.

 

Acknowledgment that we "see" ourselves as individuals,

when in fact we exist connected to everything else...

and that there is no actual separateness.

 

Once we fully know this... how can we not be enlightened?

 

 

Easy to say...much harder to do.

 

 

Yes, it was the "No actual separateness" that make the individuals not enlightened. What makes one enlightened is the separateness. Only the enlightened one see things that others do not see.

[Birch]

This guy says what I mean :-)

 

http://www.answersfromsilence.com/youve-got-enlightenment-all-backwards

[doc benway]

This guy says what I mean :-)

 

http://www.answersfromsilence.com/youve-got-enlightenment-all-backwards

Very nice find...

[manitou]

That was a nice find.

 

I'd like to add that I think it's Knowing and Accepting the responsibility that we are indeed the Creative Spirit - that there is nothing separate out there that's going to save our butts - that it's just us. That those of us who are willing to wear this responsibility do so with love and tolerance for all, realizing that we are all at the same time Mother Theresa and Jeffrey Dahmer. That we make no distinctions of good or bad, rich or poor - because that is all relative anyway and of no real consequence. That we find the true being that manifests within us and wear that from moment to moment to the best of our ability, doing so with humility and a tamed ego.

[mYTHmAKER]

If you don't see my next reply, it means I'm enlightened....